Infamous Anti-Pollard Memo Is Declassified
With little fanfare and no news media coverage, a dramatic, potentially game-changing development in the Jonathan Pollard spy case quietly occurred three months ago.
Pollard is currently serving his 30th year of an unprecedented life sentence in a U.S. prison for espionage on behalf of an ally, Israel.
After years of failed efforts petitioning the government and the court system to gain access to the classified material used to sentence their client, Pollard’s security-cleared attorneys finally won an appeal for declassification last fall.
As a result of the appeal, key sections of a 28-year-old classified document that was the central justification for Pollard’s harsh sentence were declassified and released Nov. 13, 2014.
The 49-page document in question is a memorandum that was submitted to the sentencing judge in 1987 by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. The document was obtained and reviewed by this reporter.
According to U.S. government representations of the memo for nearly three decades, the document was alleged to demonstrate that Pollard was the spy responsible for the greatest harm to U.S. national security up to the time of his sentencing. The government has persisted in this characterization of the document despite a number of other documents that have been brought to public attention which appear to contradict the government’s claims.
About 20 percent of the memo is still classified, but many of the section heads of the still secretive sections can now be seen in the declassified version.
According to the document, the crux of Pollard’s spy activities described in the declassified sections affected the U.S. relationships with Middle Eastern countries.
It states that Pollard provided Israel with information on Soviet weaponry and radar systems, information of vital import to the Jewish state’s security since at the time almost all of the technology used by Israel’s enemies was Soviet-made.
The memo states Pollard provided information concerning the fighting capabilities of Israel’s Mideast adversaries; many of the specific examples still classified.
In one newly declassified section, the document reveals Pollard provided Israel with information on the Libyan air force. This data resulted in enabling an Israeli air strike on Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunisia by helping the Israelis avoid Libyan air defenses.
The Libyan case provides a glimmer into what Weinberger viewed as harmful to U.S. national security. Weinberger wrote in the memo that the strike harmed U.S. regional interests because 62 Palestinians and 27 Tunisians were killed in raid. Weinberger called those deaths a “detriment” to the U.S.
He further complained the Israeli air strike would perhaps damage relations with Libya, which the defense secretary said he viewed as an “honest broker” for the U.S. He said Libya was helpful when it volunteered, with U.S. assistance, to provide sanctuary to Yasir Arafat’s PLO – which at the time was regarded by Israel as an enemy terrorist organization – when Arafat’s group was exiled from Lebanon in 1982.
Media Overlooks Key Portions Of ISIS Documents
ISIS is planning to use Libya as a “gateway” to Europe and has raised the possibility of storming southern European cities to cause “pandemonium” or closing international shipping lines in the Mediterranean Sea.
This according to documents released by ISIS supporters and propagandists and obtained by the Quilliam Foundation, a Britain-based think tank that focuses on counter-extremism.
The purported ISIS documents have received widespread news coverage. However, some of the more sensational possibilities described within the pages have been largely overlooked.
The documents indicate ISIS views Libya as not just fertile ground for a headquarters but as a staging base to infiltrate Europe by boat along with the hundreds of migrants who daily attempt to flee to Italy.
One ISIS document recognizes that Libya has a “long coastline” that “looks upon the southern Crusader states which can be reached with ease by even a rudimentary boat.”
The document noted “the number of ‘illegal immigration’ trips from this coast is massive, estimated to be as high as 500 people a day, as a low estimate.”
It states that “according to many [of these immigrants], it is easily possible to pass through Maritime Security Checkpoints and arrive in [European] cities.”
“If this was even partially exploited and developed strategically, pandemonium could be wrought in the southern Europe. It is even possible that there could be a closure of shipping lines because of the targeting of Crusader ships and tankers.
ISIS May Try To Attack U.S.
Egypt, now at the forefront of fighting ISIS, is warning it has intelligence revealing the global jihadist group is planning a worldwide offensive this spring or summer that could reach targets within the United States.
Interrogations of ISIS members captured in recent weeks in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula Egyptian and information collected by Egyptian security forces indicate ISIS is planning ground offensives this spring and summer aimed at taking over more territory across the Middle East and Persian Gulf, a senior Egyptian intelligence official told KleinOnline.
Some of the information indicates the new offensive will not be limited to the Arab world.
ISIS and its jihadist allies could activate cells to carry attacks in Europe and possibly within the U.S., the senior Egyptian official warned.
The official advocated the deployment of significant ground troops acting on multiple fronts to stop ISIS’s progression. He complained the Obama administration and international community has been hesitant to take major action against ISIS advances.